The SitePoint Forums have moved.

You can now find them here.
This forum is now closed to new posts, but you can browse existing content.
You can find out more information about the move and how to open a new account (if necessary) here.
If you get stuck you can get support by emailing forums@sitepoint.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

With the way you have your site designed at the moment I would say kept to the left because the design is 'open', if you understand what I mean by that - basically the table with your content in 'bleeds' into the background and I just happen to think that would look wrong if it was centred. I'd be inclined to put a border around the table (either black or the darker blue) and then set the page colour to match the lightest blue in your colour scheme. That way the table would look ok centred (from my point of view anyway, which is just personal preference) and not give so much 'white space' to users with higher resolutions. You have to bare in mind here that over 50% of users have their monitors set to 800x600. I run with 1024x768 and the white is way too much if I go full screen.

I chose centered because I have a 19" monitor at home and I find myself often working on a 21" monitor at school. I sit in the middle with respect to the monitor and left aligned pages are just excruciatingly annoying! I want to look straight into the monitor and not to the left.

I like the fact that your page doesn't use my whole screen, and I commend you for that. But your left aligned page makes it look empty when my browser window does happen to span the entire screen, whereas if it were centered it wouldn't look so empty.

Unlike Saz249, I think your site suffer's a lot more from "white-space" as it is than if it were centered, but just like Saz249, that's my view and it may not be that of the majority.

The end of the line, if you ask me, is don't make me turn my head to the left, just let me look straight! It's much easier for people to look up and down than it is for them to look left and right (which is why I don't understand why some people sit so close to their monitors!).

I personally like centered pages. I think I must be a formal balance person as I like to see a margin around the page and not all that space on the right from a left aligned page. I run at 1024x768 also, but design my pages primarily for 800x600 when I spec out specific pixels table sizes. I like to use % when and where possible so that it plays nice with all resolutions and monitors. I don't take into consideration windows that are not maximized ... wonder if I should do this?.. or how?

I think whether I like left-aligned or centered depends on what the page looks like. News.com, for example, looks fine centered, but would probably look really funny left-aligned. My site has been left-aligned for a couple of years, but I'm thinking about centering it. Which do you think looks better?: